Countess of Chester Hospital cars ‘will swamp our streets’ say residents

Feb 25 2010 by David Holmes, Chester Chronicle

PEOPLE living near the Countess of Chester Hospital fear streets will be clogged by even more cars due to a hike in parking charges for hospital staff.

The cash-strapped hospital is asking all car-driving staff to pay more, with higher paid employees facing a £42.50 monthly bill – more than double the current rate.

Furious workers have told The Chronicle they will avoid paying the charge, effective from April 1, by parking for free in the street.

Former mental health nurse John Knox, 74, of Pine Gardens, Upton, is already fed up with struggling to get out of his drive and parked cars blocking his road and pavements used by his disabled wife Eli who is in a wheelchair.

Mr Knox said: “There is one doctor who drives a BMW and I challenged him. He said it was none of my business and he said ‘I can park in the road, it’s quite legal’. Well, he can.”

Mr Knox said visitors and patients also parked in surrounding streets with many seeking to avoid the £2.50 charge which went up from £2 last year, although there is a 20-minute free drop-off period.

Cllr Jean Evans, chairwoman of Upton Parish Council, said of the hospital’s approach: “I don’t think they care about anybody. I think they just bulldoze through whatever they feel like.”

Hospital chief executive Peter Herring said in a letter to staff that the NHS had been challenged with saving £20bn over the next three years. He hoped to raise an extra £295,000 a year from car parking towards the £6.5m savings he must make next year – equivalent to 11 jobs.

Parking charges will be discussed at today’s meeting of the Countess of Chester branch of health workers’ union Unison.